Parking sacrificed near Transbay Terminal

SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - A downtown city block currently used for public parking will be transformed for five years into a temporary bus terminal while the Transbay Terminal and surrounding buildings are torn down and rebuilt.

The City plans to overhaul the 40 acres between Mission and Folsom streets, and between Main and Second streets, where new buildings will be filled with businesses and 3,400 new homes around a 1,200-foot office tower. The tower will be linked to a new bus terminal building, which might include rail stations for BART, Caltrain and high-speed rail customers when it opens in 2014.

The City’s redevelopment commission is due today to consider plans for a temporary transit terminal that will serve customers of Muni, Golden Gate Transit, Greyhound, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District and Western Contra Costa Transit Authority buses when the existing Transbay Terminal is torn down.

Paul Paridis — vice president of construction giant Hines, which will build the new office tower and terminal building — said the existing terminal might come down in 2009, although he warned that target date is “very optimistic.”

The 3.5-acre temporary terminal between Folsom and Howard streets, and between Beale and Main streets, will include a ring of bus stops surrounding an island of more bus stops, according to the plans, with a single-story Greyhound Bus Lines building planned off Folsom Street.

“This is yet another step,” Transbay Joint Powers Authority Executive Director Maria Ayerdi said, “that moves us forward to the building of the new station and opening day of 2014.”

Ayerdi said the joint agency will own the Greyhound building and all of the temporary terminal’s fixtures, including street lights, trees, benches, bike racks and canopy-style bus shelters, and that they will be handed over to The City’s redevelopment agency once the new terminal opens for business.

The temporary terminal was designed to be pedestrian-friendly, according to Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Fred Blackwell. “It will not be extremely disruptive in terms of the overall neighborhood,” he said.

But some state-owned public parking spots at the site will be lost to the project. “It will cease to be used for parking,” redevelopment agency spokesman Benjamin Ibarra said, “but that’s part of the overall plan.” Ibarra said two small commercial buildings currently on the lot would be torn down.

GREYHOUND

» Greyhound bus passengers who are dropped off from a driveway off Folsom Street will enter a Greyhound building attached to eight outdoor bus terminals.

AC TRANSIT

» A security and customer service building, which will anchor an island in the middle of the temporary terminal, will be surrounded by AC Transit bus stops. The island will be separated by two bus lanes from an outer ring of AC Transit bus stops and a WestCat bus stop.

MUNI

» Muni 108 Treasure Island Line passengers will be picked up and dropped off at the corner of Beale and Howard streets. Muni riders on the 38-Geary line, and on the 71-Haight line, will be picked up on Main Street and dropped off on Beale Street.

SAMTRANS AND GOLDEN GATE TRANSIT

» SamTrans and Golden Gate Transit bus stops will be on Main Street opposite the temporary terminal.

jupton@examiner.com

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